


Lather, Rinse, Repeat

by RunRabbitRun



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Bathing/Washing, Hugs, M/M, Showers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-15
Updated: 2011-10-15
Packaged: 2017-10-24 15:57:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/265322
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RunRabbitRun/pseuds/RunRabbitRun
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hot showers fix everything.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lather, Rinse, Repeat

Eames measures his life by hotel bathrooms, from dingy, mildew infested dives to high-end marble spas that would make even Julius Caesar gawk. The bathroom he’s in now is closer to the ‘marble spa’ end of the spectrum, thank Christ. There's no tub but it’s got a nice big shower to make up for it; one of those glass-and-polished-stone numbers with a stupid amount of shower nozzles and a stone bench jutting out from one wall so one could sit under the hot spray and luxuriate.

After the day he’s had, luxuriating seems like a pretty good plan to Eames, so he disrobes, leaving his travel-rumpled clothes all over the sleek tile floor. He turns on the taps and lets the water heat to his preferred temperature (just this side of scalding, thanks) while he takes a lengthy piss. By the time he steps into the shower, the water is piping hot and casting thick steam onto the glass.  
It’s been a hell of a day. And not even the fun kind with guns and car chases and explosions and I’m-so-glad-we’re-alive-let’s-fuck sex. No, it’s been the regular kind of hellish day, with delayed and cancelled flights, hurricane-strength wind and stinging rain, lost luggage and being stuck for six hours in a terminal packed with what seemed to be half the planet’s colicky infants. Fun.

Johan, the architect they were working with, would be pissed that they’d be arriving in Lisbon two days late, but honestly? Johan could go fuck himself as far as Eames was concerned. The job wasn’t terribly time-sensitive and Johan was the type to be a giant prick even if they were early.

The multiple nozzles are rushing in Eames’s ears, sending echoes bouncing around the bathroom, but he can still hear the door to the suite open and shut, the slide-clicks of two or three locks snapping into place, and the low buzz of Arthur talking into his cell phone. Eames listens to his partner (it took him ages to settle on that title for Arthur. He hates the term ‘boyfriend’. It sounds juvenile to his ears) shuffling around the suite. He makes another couple of phone calls and clatters away on his laptop for a few minutes. There’s a warm, swelling sensation under Eames’s ribs. It makes him vaguely uncomfortable and bizarrely… sad? Fulfilled? He’s not sure. He _might_ even like it.

He closes his eyes and leans against the wall, letting the water run down his back but opens them again when he hears the bathroom door open. The glass walls of the shower are very foggy now but he can still see Arthur frown slightly at the clothes littering the floor. He scoops them up and deposits them on the counter, next to the sink, before taking off his own wrinkled clothes and piling them on top of Eames’s.

Eames courteously slides open the shower door for him and Arthur closes it behind himself. He wraps his arms around Eames’s middle and allows him to turn them around so that he’s getting the full benefit of the showerheads.

“Fuck Johan,” Arthur mumbles against the water.

“He bitching again?” Eames asks.

“Mmhmm. Because, you know, it’s my fault that the northwest has been shut down by a gigantic storm front.”

“Of course it’s your fault. Part of being a point man is controlling the weather. Didn't you know?”

“Mmph, and the moon’s orbit and the shifting of the tectonic plates and the whims of the gods. What was I thinking?” Arthur deadpans as he pulls gently at Eames’s waist until he gets the hint and turns in Arthur’s arms.

“Fucking failure, how could you?” Eames laughs and buries his fingers in Arthur’s damp hair. It’s still a little waxy with pomade so he releases Arthur just long enough to turn and grab the little travel-sized shampoo bottle off of the marble bench. “Lean back a bit, get your hair wet.”

Arthur looks a little skeptical, a little bemused, but does as he told, pulling away from Eames to stick his head under the water until he’s soaked.

“C’mere. Close your eyes,” Eames says, pouring the shampoo out onto his hand. He rubs his hands together, spreading the gel around his palms and then laces his fingers into Arthur’s hair. He works up a respectable later and then just undulates his fingers over Arthur’s scalp, gently palpating his temples and massaging the crown of his skull. Arthur moans something like ‘hnnngg’ and drops his head farther forward.

Eames massages the soap through Arthur’s hair somewhat longer than necessary, but no one complains. Arthur is clearly enjoying himself and Eames likes looking at the interplay of colors; the tan of his skin, the white of the lather, the inky black of Arthur’s hair. Eames loves Arthur’s hair, especially when it was wet like this. When dry, it’s really a very dark brown but when wet, it turns pitch black, curling at the temples at nape, seeming to almost absorb rather than reflect light. Finally, after most of the soap has been worked out of his hair, Arthur pulls away again to rinse off.

“Now you,” he commands, pointing at the bench and picking up the shampoo. Eames happily obeys and lets Arthur rub the soap into his short, bristly hair. Arthur’s fingers, calloused and strong and gentle, work over Eames’s neck, over his crown, down to his ears and then back again, rubbing out the tension in his shoulders. It’s heavenly. Even the shampoo smells nice, and Eames isn’t the type to like heavily scented soaps. Most of them made his nose itch and run but this was a nice, light scent. Apples, maybe. Or some kind of fruit at any rate.

Arthur doesn’t stop with his massage until Eames has rinsed all the soap out, scrubbing his hands over his face and giving his cock and balls a quick going over. There’s a moment, a brief instant, when Eames is washing the soap off his bits and Arthur is scrubbing his face with a washcloth, in which their eyes meet. Most people would kiss, then. They don’t. They don’t kiss very often outside of sex. They don’t need to.


End file.
